Insurgents Kill 23 Iraqis Countrywide

Sun Dec 5, 2004 11:50 AM ET
By Andrew Marshall

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas shot dead 17 Iraqis working for U.S. forces north of Baghdad Sunday and killed six other people, including three Iraqi National Guards, taking the toll from three days of violence to more than 70.

Insurgents have launched a series of attacks in Sunni areas since Friday, mainly targeting Iraqi security forces and civilians working with the U.S. military.

The U.S. 1st Infantry Division said gunmen in two cars opened fire on two civilian buses carrying Iraqis to work at an arms dump outside Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit on Sunday, killing 17 Iraqis and wounding 13 others.

A suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle beside a National Guard convoy in the rebel stronghold of Baiji, north of Tikrit, killing local National Guard commander Mohammed Jassim Rumaied and three of his bodyguards, colleagues said.

And later Sunday, gunmen killed two National Guards and wounded four others in an attack near Latifiya, a town south of Baghdad that has seen persistent unrest, officials said.

Saturday, a suicide bomber targeted a bus carrying Kurdish peshmerga fighters in the city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, killing 16 people, Kurdish officials said. The peshmerga have been helping secure Mosul since most of the city's police fled after an insurgent onslaught last month.

Two suicide bombers also struck at a police station just outside the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad Saturday, killing seven people and wounding more than 50.

Friday, a suicide bomb outside a Shi'ite mosque in Baghdad killed 14, and 11 Iraqi police were killed in a guerrilla assault on a police station in the capital.

At least six U.S. troops have also been killed since Friday.

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